Comments on: And Now, Part II of the Armor Forecast

By: BC

BC — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:31:28 +0000

TB,
The vehicle in the pic is the MillenWorks LUV. It’s the Textron/Boeing/MillenWorks JLTV offering.

By: KragCulloden

KragCulloden — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:08:33 +0000

3-way tie for worst SecDef ever: Johnson, McNamara, Rumsfeld.

By: TB

TB — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:05:52 +0000

Old Sailor,
The FCS N-LOS cannon is supposed to go into full production in a year or two. From what I understand, they basically took the cannon from the Crusader and reworked it to fit on the N-LOS cannon. I don’t know what the eventual distribution will be, but I think they need to replace every Paladin battalion with it.
CoolHand77,
the vehicle in the photo is a prototype for the JLTV, or Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, which may replace the humvee in the next few years. I believe the one in the photo is General Dynamic’s submission.

By: Old Sailor

Old Sailor — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:09:34 +0000

Ok Old Trooper! I never said that the old, heavy Army was all we ever needed. (BTW, I worked as an engineer on the Crusader project over 3 years; that’s why I have an interest in and some knowledge of Army vehicles.)
What I object to is the idea that was being proposed half a dozen years ago by Rumsfeld and others like Cheney: that the old heavy armored and tracked vehicles like the M1 should all be done away with in favor of “lighter, faster, more lethal (supposedly) etc” vehicles with wheels and weigh only 20 tons or so.
The discussion on this website concerning carbon nanotubes for tank armor is exactly what makes those ideas so ridiculous. Even today, trying to come up with armor that gives the same or better protection than the depleted-uranium armor on the M1 and only weighs 20 tons or so is impossible. No problem, except Rummy was trying to make it happen RIGHT NOW (this decade), not 20–30 years down the road. Talk about forcing the Army to commit suicide before even going to war. If he had succeeded in creating his all-“lighter, faster, etc” army and then gone to war with it, we would have been in a real mess with a lot more dead soldiers than we already have. Thankfully, the Army and Pentagon has seen the “light” and things are going the other direction now.
The Crusader is also a great point: even before reducing the weight down to less than 30 tons as the Pentagon was demanding, the armor wouldn’t protect the crew against anything more powerful than an artillery fragment, let alone a roadside bomb or maybe an RPG. It was laughably flimsy to start with, the idea being that hey, the Crusader would be way behind the lines anyway, so it wouldn’t matter. Whoops, then came Iraq and roadside bombs. True, it deserved to be terminated or reworked on a number of grounds like being vulnerable to things like roadside bombs, but not for the reasons given. Rummy just needed an excuse to divert the funds to other programs is all.
I believe the Crusader technology of MRSI (multiple rounds, simultaneous impact) is still needed by the Army, because we will be going to war again someday, and it won’t be against some third-world banana republic. Air support cannot do everything.
I’m out of date on the current state of the FCS, but probably it’s going to happen there.

By: coolhand77

coolhand77 — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:34:55 +0000

I still want to know what that beast is in the pic. Looks like a mine resistant hulled Humvee. Turkey uses something similar IIRC (Humvee guts, but a better hull including the angled armor plating to deflect mine/IED blasts instead of the flat bottom that the Humvee has).

By: slntax

slntax — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:56:12 +0000

Jeff M
With new band tracks you can travel stealthy, faster, double your fuel range, and not tear up the roads, they should move to bands tracks for all tracks.
check it out over here on youtube

By: Roy Smith

Roy Smith — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:22:07 +0000

I don't like Rumsfeld,I think he sucked big time.But so did Cheney when he was Sec.Def. & let us not forget Les Aspin during the 90s.For a culture that stresses "balance" & "yin & yang," we sure don't seem to have either.The one thing that the Crusader Howitzer had was a longer gun barrel(L55-caliber) for greater distances.The Paladin,for all of its upgrades(including a Bradley chassis) still has the same little barrel(L39-caliber) that it has had since the 60s or before even that.The "International" version has a L52-caliber barrel,why can't our domestic version also have a longer barrel? What "divine" wisdom has proclaimed that "L39-caliber" is good enough? I guess wheeled armored vehicles are good enough....for a "domestic" gendarme force which I wonder if that is what our army is being reduced to?

By: Jeff M

Jeff M — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:48:24 +0000

The problem with tracked vehicles is they chew up the road real good, you can drive wheeled vehicles on city streets and not have the repair crew driving behind you filling the potholes.
Anyways, tracked vehicles are unnecessary when you have streets.

By: old trooper

old trooper — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:03:43 +0000

Ok. I usually stay out things like thins but “old sailor” has tweaked my nose somewhat. I came up in the old army and I have seen the brass make many a stupid and senseless decision and then give that senseless and stupid advice to politicians who sometimes followed it and sometimes not. The Iranian hostage rescue ring a bell? Carter followed to the letter what the brass said would do the mission. Yeah, right. The brass hats aren’t always correct, no one is. Was Rumsfeld correct in all of his decisions, no? Nevertheless, if the pentagon had their way we would still be sitting in Germany guarding against an imaginary threat with legacy equipment that is ill suited to today

By: tipover

tipover — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:07:47 +0000

Yup. We need an “old Sailor” making recommendations on ground force makeup. :->
Each situation calls for it’s own mix of equipment.